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Was it something you ate? & WINNERS!!!

On Friday morning, everything was super normal and fun. I woke up at 7:45, took a shower, and ate breakfast: a Kellogg's breakfast bar.
As I gathered my things for my class at 9am that day, I couldn't help but notice a slight tingling going on in my mouth. For some reason, my tongue was itchy. Odd...

But it wasn't just itchy.

Less than 20 minutes later, my tongue began to swell at an alarming rate. At first, I was just mildly disconcerted, but when I began to have a difficult time breathing I started to panic. So I hopped into my car and made my way to the Vanderbilt hospital emergency room.
Once inside, the nurse immediately administered some Benadryl while I waited for a doctor or resident or whatever to assist me in my situation. While waiting, the nurse asked me "Was it something you ate?" Part of me understood that this was a generic, must-ask question, but I couldn't help but be kind of annoyed. If I knew that, I probably wouldn't be here, now would I?

45 minutes later, I was still sitting in the lobby, and my tongue had decreased enough in size to be no concern. So I left the emergency room without seeing an actual doctor, and I only had to pay for the Benadryl. Cheapest hospital visit EVER!

In the end, I'm ok, but I did end up missing all of my classes that day. Ah, well... What can you do?

BUT!!! I still have the winners for last week's issue of "Make It Up Monday" to post!

I was so impressed by all of your entries for this past post, and I had such a hard time whittling them down! Out of a total of seventy-nine comments, I have come up with a list of 8 winners. Whew!

Without further ado...

Dun Da DAHHHHH!!!

(Side note: These are listed in no particular order. You're all #1 to me!)

It's not so much as the inconvenience of having to wait for the car to get fixed; it's just the things you can't quite fix yourself.
Things that aren't physically incapacitating but still leave your heart gaping, a hole that mercifully you've become numbed to. But it still doesn't change the fact that there's still an emptiness inside you yearning to be filled.
"Car's ready," he says, a shaky smile appearing reluctantly on his face.
He wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead and looks at you with guarded eyes, cautious eyes--and as much as you want to return that smile, you can't.
Because whatever this little road trip was supposed to do, no matter how much "bonding" the two of you share in these next few days, you know that nothing can mend these hollow memories, these neglected years.
Because how do you fix something that wasn't there in the first place?

Veronica stared down the highway. She had studied her mother, who was absolutely unfazed at her father’s deft swiftness and decisive command over a dangerous situation. Maybe she was trying to look straight back into the past, not just the down road they had driven on for the last nine hours. Back into the time before her father had become useless. Which he obviously was not, Veronica thought. He had heard the click-click-click of the nail in the tire, pulled to the road and quickly changed the tire without even getting his sleeves dirty. He even joked, “Well, look likes I’m not the only person who didn’t want us to take this trip,” as he pulled the steel nail from the middle of the tire tread. But that’s not why Veronica pushed the long nail right into the center of the tire before her parents had gotten out of their beds that morning. She stared down the highway, wondering how many miles back she’d have to look just to remember happiness.

The first time I met my father he gave me an apple flavoured lolly pop to suck on. He wore smart colourful clothes, just like mum had wanted (no black, she said) he held my hand like I needed, and seemingly had a never stash of sweets. He wasn’t at all like mum had been describing him all my life, a deadbeat she called him, I hadn’t even known what that meant. I spent the next ten years gain a compressive understanding of the term, my first lesson, a flat tyre on the way to my mum’s funeral.

The mundanities fall by the wayside -
no match for breathless eyes
that see sparkle on a wyoming horizon,
no match for fine ears that reach
for magic on the windblown plains.
Even bare rubber and asphalt
fall victim to the soaring flight
that transcends stagnant reality.

The car suddenly made a big popping sound.
Mario’s face opened with surprise. He labored to pull the car over onto the side of the freeway.
He got out and looked to at the side of the car. “Looks like we’ve got a flat, Rhon. You wanna come out and help me a sec?”
Rhonda. One of the better names I’d made up for myself. I’d have to keep that in mind.
I climbed out of the car slowly and reluctantly. No, I didn’t really want to help him fix the flat. I’m not an auto mechanic, not even close. But I felt I owed it to him. Not a lot of guys would pick up an eleven year old girl hitch-hiking along the side of the Arizona highway.
Leaving the air-conditioned Mustang made me realize how hot it was outside. Fortunately it was a dry heat, and I much preferred it to the humidity of the east coast, a place I’d spent a lot of time. I took a moment to roll up my sleeves.
Mario was fiddling with a long silver thing he was pressing into the hubcap of the car. I tuned out a little bit, gazing off the side of the highway into the open desert. There was a rugged beauty about the red rocks, the unwavering sunlight. Almost godly. And the complete lack of civilization. This is where I want to live, I thought. Away from all the people.
“Here,” Mario said from behind me. I turned around and saw that he had pried the offending tire from the rim. “Can you hold onto this for a little while?” He smiled and got back to work.
I got down onto my knees and rolled the tire over to me. Why was he so nice to me? Why wasn’t he like every nearly other grown-up I’d ever known, and told me I was worthless? I almost regretted not being able to tell him my real name.
Skyler. It took a moment to remember. My father used to say that it was because my heart was as big as the sky. I started conjuring a picture of my father.
No. My father was dead. No use reopening old wounds. Harden the heart.
I pulled the tire close to me and nestled against it. I didn’t worry about ruining my clothes; the dog back in Louisiana had taken care of that.
I started thinking back to the time I first ran away, two years ago. When I was nine. When I first realized that my mother was not safe or stable, and that she was going to kill me.
So I left, because it’s the only thing I know how to do. Run away.
My gaze was drawn to a falcon soaring on some thermals, wings spread as if experiencing the most relaxing thing in the world.
I wish I was a bird. You can’t trap a bird. A bird can fly, fly away from all its troubles. And it doesn’t ever have to look back.

'Dad! Dad! Only look! There's a beautiful horse, and it has a foal too. Dad? There's a cloud that looks like a boat sailing in the blue sky, and look! There's a red tractor out on the golden field and there are birds, flocks of white birds!'
'Dad?'
'Oh for heavens' sake, child, can't you see I'm busy?'
So she stopped sharing, and just looked, and she thought 'I hope I never get so busy I can't see.'

ib said...
She watched the long stretch of road while dad scurried about to replace the flat. It is an urban legend around these parts that the hills have eyes. Sissy sat there, still. I could feel the tension that she wrestled with. I could almost taste her fear.
I feel so useless here in this back seat, and my damn leg itches underneath this cast. It is chilly out here in this dead land "Sissy, the tire". As she turned to roll the spare toward dad, my attention was drawn to the road. A mile or so away, I saw him, arms spread wide, walking down the middle of this old stretch. You could almost see death rolling like waves behind him.

Congrats to you all!! Keep up with the comments! I absolutely love reading what you come up with for all of these exercises! :)

Peace.
Stef.

P.S. Tune in later today at 2pm (central time) for today's exercise! :)

Thank you, I would like to thank........just kidding. I am, however, suprised that you chose my little tid bit as one of the eight. I like what it is that you are doing here and look forward to checking in each day. I hope this finds you well. I am happy to hear that your okay after your trip to the ER. It is a scary feeling that I too, have experienced, only mine was not as severe.

Without further ado, the One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying, Purple People Eater by Sheb Wooley:

Great, huh? I don't remember when I was first introduced to this all-sorts-of-wonderful song, but I'm pretty sure it was care of my Mom. She definitely has provided quite a bit of the humor in my life, and I'm sure she's one of the big reasons…

Exercise #83 : "Yellow List"
What things are yellow? Make a list. At the end of the five minutes, note the three you find most curious.
Ah, yellow. One of my least favorite colors. I mean, it's nice and all, but there are so many versions of this color that are simply eye-raping. Anyways, on with the list.